Time Bomb
by scripting life
Summary: It's just a matter of time before they all go boom. Oneshot. Spoilers for "47 Seconds"


A/N: Whoa, holy crap! That promo sure did it's job. Yeowch. I sooooo cannot wait for next week.

Anyhow, I think this is just about the quickest turnaround I've ever done, in terms of seeing the trailer and then spitting this out right after. This is Castle right after he finds out, so his thoughts are going to be majorly warped. I think he'll be able to better understand Kate's motives when he calms down, but I really wanted to just capture the anguish and the chaos of his emotions in the immediate fallout.

Enjoy! (If angst can be enjoyed.)

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><p>Spoilers: Based on the promo for 4x19 "47 Seconds."<p>

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><p>Disclaimer: I would not practically be having a heart attack in anticipation of how the rest of this season is going to pan out if I owned it. That pleasure belongs to Andrew Marlowe and ABC studios.<p>

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><p><em><strong>TIME BOMB<strong>_

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><p>It's appropriate, he thinks, that in the end, it is a bomb that blows them apart.<p>

...

"_You remembered?" _

_..._

They've had so many near-misses with explosions in the past few years that things going up in flames around them almost seems commonplace.

Except this time, it's not an apartment or barely-stopped-on-time-dirty-bomb or a bank vault or a room full of war inducing secrets that is being charred to ashes. It's not even a bomb at a protest rally killing five and tearing apart the lives of countless others.

This time it's his heart and his soul and _them_.

This time, he doesn't think he has the strength (or the will) to put them back together because she_ remembers _and she didn't even think to tell him.

...

"_I was shot in the chest and I remember _every second_ of it."_

_..._

No, instead she had to spill her dirty little secret to a goddamn suspect in a goddamn interrogation room.

(He hates the poetry of it.)

It hurts, hurts so very fucking much, that she remembered this whole time and she couldn't even give him the courtesy of acknowledging it. Even if she were to just tell him that yes, she'd heard him, and no, she doesn't love him, at least then he'd _know_.

He'd know where he stood and he could work on improving that standing.

Instead, he'd been reduced to the lovesick pup, happily gobbling up what little kibbles of affection she might dole out. And he feels so _stupid_ that he's been following her around all this time and putting his faith in her vague promises of a future without walls and he thinks, _damn the walls._

He's been laid waste, and all that's left of him is a crater where the ground zero of his heart used to be.

It shouldn't hurt because nothingness should equal no pain, but instead it hurts more than anything has in his life.

...

"_Secrets are like time bombs."_

"_Eventually they...explode."_

_..._

He can't help but think back to a month ago and how he was feeling sorry for the Morgan's and the secret that had rent their family asunder.

(His writer's mind automatically supplies him with the correct term. Foreshadowing: a literary device wherein the author indistinctly suggests certain plot developments that might come later in the story. When had his life become a damn book?)

Time bombs and secrets. Secrets and time bombs.

He thinks he should have seen this coming. But he's become so adept at lying to himself these days that he didn't dare question her too closely when she said that she didn't remember.

He'd told himself that it was better for her _not _to remember because of everything else that happened that day; because he didn't want her remembering getting shot. Because he couldn't but help but think that maybe his telling her that he loved her would forever be associated with her getting shot.

Because his love would be tainted.

His love _is_ tainted, just not the way he thought it was.

Why is it that loving someone could hurt so much?

_..._

"_She lied to you."_

"_I'm such a fool."_

__...__

As he downs another shot of whiskey, he realizes that her lie is not the worst part.

The worst part is, despite the aching void is his chest—phantom pains from a carved-out heart—he knows he will wake up tomorrow with a splitting headache, and then he'll go to her and ask her why. She will give him her reasons. Maybe he'll understand, maybe he won't, but he _will_ forgive her and they will return to their normal selves in their normal lives, albeit with a lot more hesitance and uncertainty between them.

It's a little self-destructive, how much he loves her, but that isn't the reason why he'll take her back.

In truth, it's because by tomorrow, he will remember that he has a secret he's been keeping from her too.

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><p>AN: It was really hard deciding how to use Martha's quote ("She lied to you") because there was absolutely no context as to her opinion on Beckett's motives in the promo. I chose to use it in the negative because it fit better in the flow of this piece.

In any case, I'd appreciate it if you'd drop a line or two. Thanks!

(By the way, is anyone else having issues with not being able to see story stats?)


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